DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Developmental psychology is the study of age related changes throughout the life span. It studies human development from conception to death. As psychologists realized that
development did not cease at adolescence but continued into adulthood and old age, life span psychology assumed an important place in developmental psychology.
Human development is an interdisciplinary field that involves many fields, especially biology, education, psychology; also history, sociology, anthropology, medicine and economics.
Why Do We Study Developmental Psychology?
Responsibility for children is a part of our everyday lives. The more we learn about children, the more we can better deal with them and assist them in becoming competent human beings.
Developmental psychology gives us insight about our development as well as adults.
Being aware of the developmental characteristics of each phase of life provides expectations and developmental support more realistic and humane:
Expectations:
-Self-esteem
-Positive self-image -Motivation
-Assertiveness -Adaptation
-Psychological well-being
Development is the pattern of movement or change that occurs throughout the life span and is influenced by an interplay of biological, cognitive and psychosocial processes.
Domains of Human Development
Biological Development Cognitive Development Psychosocial Development Changes in the individual’s
physical nature; genes, brain development, motor skills, hormonal changes,height and weight gains, sexual
maturation, nutrition
Changes in the individual’s thought, intelligence and language; perception, imagination, judgement, to think , decide and learn
Changes in interpersonal relationships, in emotions and in personality; the influences of the family, culture, society, morality and gender roles; choice of occupation; peer relationships
Characteristics of Development:
1. Development is lifelong: No age period dominates development.
2. Development is multi-directional: Some directions or components may increase in growth, while others decrease. However, it follows a particular order, is not consisted of random change.
3. Development is plastic and contextual: Depending on individual’s life conditions, development may take many paths. The individual continually responds to and acts on contexts, which include a person’s biological make-up, physical environment and social, historical and cultural contexts.
4. Development is multidimensional: It consists of biological, cognitive, social, and psychological dimensions.
Ecological perspective: This broader approach to understand development is called ecological model. It indicates the systems that support human development at four levels, each nested within next (Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory of Development)
The Nature of Development:
1. The concepts of development, maturation and growth needs to be distinguished.
Maturation: The orderly sequence of changes determined by individual’s genetic inheritence.
Growth : Refers to an increase in physical quantity over time (e.g. growth in height and weight)
2. Critical period: It is a specific time in development when a number of events have greatest impact on human. If the organism does not receive the appropriate stimulus during this period, it may be difficult or even impossible, to develop some functions later in life (e.g. Critical period for learning language is before puberty, prenatal period most vulnerable to birth deficits is period of embryo).
Sensitive period: It is a time that is optimal for certain capacities to emerge and in which the individual is especially responsive to environmental influence (e.g.Second language learning is easier during childhood).
3. Continuity and Discontinuity in Development:
Contiunity of development: The view that development involves gradual cumulative change from conception to death. (e.g. A child’s first word, discontinuous event, is actually the results of weeks and months of growth)
Discontuity of development: The view that development involves distinct stages in the life span. (e.g. Adolescence is period during which fundemantal changes occur in physical, cognitive and psychosocial aspects)
4. Nature vs Nurture: The debate about whether development is influenced by maturation or by experience has been part of psychology. Nature refers to an organism’s
biological inheritance, nurture to environmental experiences. Nature proponents claim that the most important influence on development is biological inheritence. Nurture proponents claim that environmental experiences are the most important influence.
THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT
I. PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES
Freud’s Theories: According to psychoanalytic perpective of Freud, people move through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social
expectations. The way these conflicts are resolved determines the individual’s ability to learn, to get along with others, and cope with anxiety.
-Topographic Model: According to Freud, there are three levels of mental life.
Conscious: It is the only level of mental life directly available to us. What we perceive through our sense organs, if not too threatening, enters into consciousness.
Preconscious: Contains all that elements that are not conscious but can become conscious either quite readily or with some difficulty.
Unconscious: The unconscious contains all those drives, urges, or instincts that are beyond our awareness, but motivate most of our words, feelings and actions.
-Structural Model: To explain the dynamics of psychological development, Freud identified three components of personality; the id, ego and superego
The Id: It is present at birth, contains all our basic instincts such as our need for food, drink, nurturance. It looks for immediate gratification. The newborn infant who seeks gratification of needs without regard is all id.
The Ego ( I ): It is the central and rational part that does all planning and keeps us in touch with reality. I begins to develop from the moment of birth. The ego becomes differentiated from the id when infants learn to distinguish themselves from the outer world.
The superego ( Above I ): It represents the moral and ideal aspects of personality and is guided by the moralistic and idealistic principle. At about age 4-5, the superego starts to develop, as children begin to identify with their parents’ moral standards during the phallic stage.
-Psychosexual Development: According to Freud, development means moving through five distinctive stages of life, each of which he assigns to a specific age range. Each stage is discrete from others and has a major functions, which is based on pleasure center. Unless, this pleasure center is stimulated appropriately ( “not too much, not too little”), the person
becomes fixated ( remains at that stage ) and is unable to become fully mature person.
1.Oral Stage (0-1 year): The mouth is the first organ that provides pleasure. Erogenous zone is the oral activity including lips, tongue and associated structures. It is their prime contact with the social and physical environment capturing most of their sexual energy.
Freud believed that mouth remains an important erogenous zone through life. Like gum chewing, kissing, kissing, biting, smoking, overeating, biting pencils, insulting is the
attachment of libido to the oral zone. As children grow older, the mouth continues to ben an eorgenous zone. The oral stage ends, when the child is weaned.
Freud argued that the infant who is given either excessive or insufficient amounts of stimulation is likely to become an oral passive personality type in adulthood, who has an
optimistic view of world, who has established trusting dependent relationships with others (immature, dependent, passive personality).
The second half of the first year is oral-aggressive or oral sadistic phase when the infant acquired teeth, biting and chewing become important means of expressing frustration caused by the mother’s absence or by delay of gratification. Fixation at the oral-sadistic stage is reflected in adults who are argumentative, pessimistic.
2. Anal Stage (1-3 years): The source of gratification is anal region. This stage is divided into two subphases.
- Early anal period (anal-sadistic): Stafisfaction by destroying or loosing objects.
Children often behave aggresively toward their parents for frustrating them with toailet training.
- Late anal period (anal-erotic): Children takes pleasure both retention and expulsion of feces and learn to enhance this pleasure by delaying bowel movements. Children will present their feces to parents as a gift. Freud suggested 2 types of parental startegies for dealing with frustrations of toilet training.
If parents are too harsh and repressive, children may hold their feces and become constipated, as a way of obtaining anal pressure. Than, the child will become anal- retentive and this exoticism becomes transformed into the “anal triad” of orderliness, stinginess, and obstinacy.
If parent pleads with the child to have regular bowel movements, the child with praise with doing so, the child will develop an anal-aggressive character. A person fixated at this level would show traits of cruelty, destructiveness, hostility and disorderliness.
With the onset of toilet training, the child learns to distinguish between the demands of id and restrains imposed by parents. The development of superego starts with toilet training.
3. The Phallic Stage (3-5 years): The genital area becomes the leading erogenous zone.
During this stage, children can be observed exammining their sex organs, masturbating and expressing interest to birth and sex. Masturbation starts with oral stage (autoeroticism).
During phallic stage masturbation is universal. But due to parental suppression, children repress their desires.
Freud argued that physical differences between males and females account for many important psychological differences (“Anatomy is destiny”)
The main conflict of the phallic stage is Oedipus complex and in girls called Electra complex.
Every child unconsciously desire to posses the opposite-sexed parent and dispose of the same- sexed parent. This love to his mother and presence of his father makes the little boy to be afraid of his father. Because the father is stronger than him and the little boy starts to be afraid that his father is going to cut his penis for punishment. This fear is called castration anxiety.
The Oedipus conflict is normally resolved as the boy repress sexual desire for mother and begins to identify with his father. In girls, unlike his father or brother she lacks penis. When
the girls realize this, they develop “penis envy”. Than, between 5 to 7 years old, they find something else to replace penis which is their genitalia.
4. The Latency Period (5-11 years): The libidinal energy is sublimated into non sexual activities such as athletics and peer relationships. Latency thus, does not qualify as a stage of psychosexual development since no erogenous zone emerge.
5. The Genital Stage (11 years and on ): With the onset of puberty, comes as a resugence of sexual and agressive impulses coupled with an increased awareness of and sexual interest in other human.
Psychosocial Development Theory
Erik Erikson (1902-1994) empahsized that ego does not just mediate between id impulses and superego demands. At each stage, it acquires attitudes betweenid impluses and superego demands. At each stage, it acquires attitudes and skills that make the individual an active, contributing member of society. A basic psychological conflict, which is resolved along a continuum from positive to negative determines healthy or maladaptive outcome at each stage. He also argued that “normal” development must be understood in relation to each culture’s life situation.
Psychosocial stages:
1. Basic trust vs. mistrust (0-1 years): Babies learn either to trust that others will care for basic needs, including nourishment, warmth, cleanliness and physical contact, or to lack confidence in the care of others.
2. Autonomy vs. shame and doubt (1-3 years): Children learn either to be self
sufficient in many activities, including toiletting, feeding, walking and exploring or to doubt their own abilities.
3. Initiative vs. guilt (3-6 years): Children want to undertake many adultlike activities sometimes overstepping the limits set by parents and feeling guilty.
4. Industry vs. inferiority (6-11 years): Children learn to be competent and productive in mastering new skills or feel inferior and unable to do anything well.
5. Identity vs. role confusion (12-19 years): Adolescents try to figure out “who am I ?”.
They establish sexual, political and career identities or are confused about what roles to play.
6. Intimacy vs. Isolation (20s-30s): Young adults seek companionship and love with another person or become isolated from others by fearing rejection or disappointment.
7. Generativity vs. Stagnation (40s-50s): Middle aged adults contribute to the next generation by performing meaningful work, creative activities, and/or raising a family or become stagnant and inactive.
8. Integrity vs. Despair (60 years and older): Older adults try to make sense out of their lives, either seing life as a meaningful whole or despairing at goals never reached and questions never answered.
Comparison of Psychosexual and Psychosocial Stages
Approximate Age Developmental Period
Freud Erikson
0-1 year Infancy Oral Stage Trust vs Mistrust
1-3 years Infancy Anal Stage Autonomy vs Shame
and Doubt 3-6 years Early childhood Phallic Stage Initiative vs Guilt 7-11 years Middle and late
childhood
Latency Industry vs
Inferiority 12-19 years Adolescence Genital Stage Identity vs Confusion
20s-30s Early adulthood Genital Stage Intimacy vs Isolation
40s-50s Middle adulthood Genital Stage Generativity vs
Stagnation 60 years and on Late adulthood Genital Stage Integrity vs Despair
II. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development:
The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980), argued that children actively construct their own worlds, information is not just poured into their minds from the environment. Piaget believed that children adapt their thinking to include new ideas. According to Piaget, there are two main processes that underlie the individual’s construction of the world.
Dynamics of Cognitive Development
Organization Adaptation
Accomodation Assimilation
To make sense of our world we organize our experiences. For example, we seperate important ideas from less important ideas, we connect one idea to another. We also adopt our thinking to include new ideas. Adoptation occurs in two ways.
Assimilation : Incorporating new information into existing knowledge.
Accomodation : Individuals adjust to a new information.
Piaget believed that we go through four stages of cognitive development in undertsanding the world. Each stage is age related and each has distinctive ways of thinking.
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor
Period Preoperational
Period Concrete
Operational Period Formal Operational Period
0-2 years 2-7 years 7-11 years 11 years and on
I. Sensorimotor Stage: Infant uses senses and motor abilities to undertsand the world.There is no conceptual thought.
Major acquisition: The infant learns that an object still exists when it is out of sight (object permenance) and begins to think by using mental as well as physical actions.
Development of Object Permenance
Months Object Permenance
0-4 Babies continue to look where an object was, only for few moments
4-8 Babies will reach for an object that is partially hidden 8-12 Retrieving fully hidden object at one location
12-18 Retrieving object that is hidden within her/his view 18-24 Fully understands object permenance
II. Preoperational Stage: The child uses symbolic thinking, including language to understand the world, make believe plays begin. Child’s thinking is egocentric.
Major acquisitions: The imagination flourishes. Egocentricism gradually decrease.
Egoncentricism: A cognitive state the individual sees the world only from her/his view without awareness that there are no other perspectives (e.g. three mountains task).
Animisim: Another facet of preoperational thought is the belief that inanimate objects have “lifelike” qualities (e.g. the tree pushed the leaf off and it fell down; the car does not work, because it is tired).
Magical thinking is an example of animalistic thinking (e.g. believing in fairy tales, magic, süper heroes).
Artificalism: The idea that natural phenomena are created by human being (e.g. the sun is created by a man with a match).
III. Concrete Operational Stage: The child undertsand and applies logical operations, or principles, to help interprete experiences objectively.
Major acquisitions: Children learn to understand conservation, number, classifications and amnay other scientific ideas.
Conservation: The logical thinking ability that a certain quantity will remain the same despite adjustment of the container, shape or appearent size.
During preoperational period, children are capable of counting, however, it is only during concrete operational stage that they become able to apply mathematical operations as a result of abilities to order things in terms of number (seriation) and to split numbers into sets and subsets (classification).
IV. Formal Operational Stage: The adolescent or adult is able to think about abstract and hypothetical concepts.
Major acquisitions: Ethics, politics, social and moral issues become more interesting, more theorretical approach to experiences emerge.
Adolescent egocentricism: Adolescents, who assumes that other people are obssessed with their behaviors and appearences (“imaginary audience”), exhibit egocentricism as they cannot identify others’ perceptions. By late adolescence, sociocentricism begin to take place of egocentricism.
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
Using Piaget’s ideas about cognitive development as a basis, Kohlberg’s moral stages emerge from a child’s active thinking about moral issues and decisions. Kohlberg formulated a sophisticated scheme of moral development extanding from 4 years of age through adulthood.
To discover the structures of moral reasoning and the stages of moral development, Kohlberg (1975) employed a technique called “moral dilemma”, in which a conflict leads subjects to justify the morality of their choices.
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development LEVEL I: Preconventional
(4-10 years)
LEVEL II: Conventional (10-13 years)
LEVEL III:
Postconventional (13 years and on) Responding to cultural
control to avoid punishment and attain satisfaction
Stage 1: Punishment and obedience
Stage 2: Instrumental behaviorism
Desiring approval from society and individuals. Not
only conform but actively support standards.
Stage 3: “The good boy- the good girl”
Stage 4: Law-and-order mentality
True morality appears,
“enlightened conscience”
develop
Stage 5: Legalistic or contractual moral decisions Stage 6: Internalized standards of right or wrong
III. BEHAVIORAL THEORIES
Skinner’s and Bandura’s Views
In his theory called operant conditioning (instrumental conditioning), Skinner demonstrated that the environment has much greater influence on leraning and behavior than previously realized. Skinner argued that the environment (parents, teachers, peers) reacts to our
behaviour and either reinforces or eliminates that behavior. Thus, the environment holds the key to understand behaviour. If the environment reinvorces a certain behavior, it is more likely to result the next time that stimulus occurs. For example, if the teacher asks a prticular question, again the student is more likely to give the right answer, because the response was reinforced. If the response is punishment, the response is less likely in the future.
Albert Bandura has stressed the influence of modelling on personality development. He called this observational learning. Bandura cited evidence to show that learning occurs through observing other, even when the observers do not immitate the model’s responses at that time and get no reinforcement.
COMPARING THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT
PYSCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOSOCIAL COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL HUMANISTIC Major
Figures
Freud Erikson Piaget Skinner,
Bandura
Maslow Major
Ideas
Passage through pschosexual stages
Passage through psychosocial stages
Pasage through stages of cognitive development
Power of operant conditioning, role of social learning
Staisfaction of basic needs
Essential
Features Id, ego, superego;
psychosexual stages Psychosocial crises; psychosocial crises
Formation of cognitive structures, stages of cognitive development
Reinforcement;
observational learning, modelling
Hierarchy of needs
Goal Sexually mature
individual A sense of personal
integrity Satisfactory formation and use of
cognitive structures
The acquisition of conditioned acts to fulfill needs
Fulfilling individual potential
THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF DEVELOPMENT
Each human is made up of trilions of seperate units called cells. Inside every cell, there is a control center, or nucleus, that contains rodlike structures called chromosomes which store and transmit genetic information. Human chromosomes come in 23 matching pairs. Each pair member corresponds to other in size, shape, and genetic functions. One is inherited from the mother an done from the father. Chromosomes are made up of chemical substance called DNA. A gene is a segment of DNA along the length of the chromosome. Around 100.000 of genes are organized in a sequence and position on chromosomes.
22 of the 23 pairs of chromosomes are matching pairs (autosomes). The 23rd pair consist of sex chromosomes. In females, this is caled XX, in males it is called XY. The sex of the new organism will be determined by which sperm reaches the ovum first, a Y sperm, creating a boy (XY) or an X sperm, creating a girl (XX). Males inherit just one C chromosome, from theri mother, and so, through X linked inheritence. They have a greater chance than feamles of inheriting certain harmful recessive genes.
Each person has a unique combination of genes with one important exception. Identical (monozygotic) twins are formed from one zygote that splits into, creating two zygotes with identical genes.
Genes always function in an environment, and environmental circumstances affect the way the genes express themselves. In other words, a person’s genetic inheritance (genetic
potential) and the actual expression of that inheritance must be distinguished. The total of all genes the person inherits is called genotype (our genetic heritage), the actual expression of traits, obervable in the person’s physical apperance as well as her/his behavioral tendencies is called phenotype.
Dominant-recessive pattern is important for genetic interaction. Only one gene affect child’s characteristics. It is called dominant and acts in controlling manner. The second gene which has no affect is called recessive. Thus, a person who inherits a dominant gene for a particular characteristic develops the phenotype of the dominant gene. If two recessive genes are present then the phenotype recessive genes are present, then the phenotype expresses the recessive form of the characteristics.
Examples of Dominant and Recessive Characteristics
Dominant Recessive
Dark hair Normal hair
Curly hair Straight hair
Facial dimples No dimples
Normal hearing Some forms of deafness
Normal vision Eye cataracts
Rh positive blood Rh negative blood
Normally pigmented skin Albinisim
Besides harmfull recessive genes, abnormalities of the chormosomes are major cause of serious developmental problems. Chromosomal abnormalities ocur when there are two few or too many chromosomes. Every individual carries some genes for for genetic handicaps and diseases. However, many of these are recessive and most babies will not inherit a serious genetic defect.
Chromosomal Diseases
Name Characteristics
Down Syndrome 47 chormosomes, distintives physical
features, mental retardation, phsyical problems (e.g. cataract, cancer, hearing problem, tyroid problem)
Kleinfelter Syndrome XXY chromosomal pattern in males,
secondary sex cahracters do not develop, learning disabled, possible psychological problems
Turner Syndrome One X chromosome missing in females
(XO), lack of secondary sex characteristics, infertile, learning disabled
XYY Syndrome XYY chromosomal pattern is males, tend to
be large, normal intelligence and behavior, some mentally reatrded, prone to acne, unusually tall
Genetic Disorders
Name Description
Tay-Sachs Disease Enzyme disease, results in blindness, mental retardation and death. One in 25 Jews of Eastern Europe is career
Sickle-cell anemia Blood disorder produces anemia and
considerable pain, heart and kidney failure. 1 in 10 African American is career.
Phenylketonuria (PKU) Abnormal digestion pf protein, results in mental retardation, treated by special diet
Cystic fibrosis Lack of enzyme, excessive production of
mucus, may be fatal problems in lungs and digestive track
Tourette Syndrome Uncontrollable tics, body jerking, verbal obscenities. Worses with age can be treated with drugs
Tests to dtermine abnormalities: Amniocentesis, ultrasound sonography, maternal blood test, CVT.
THE STAGES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Developmental stage Approximate Age
Prenatal stage 0-38 weeks
Infancy 0-2 years
Early childhood (preschool years) 2-6 years Middle and late childhood (elementary
school years)
6-11 years
Adolescence 12-19 years
Early adulthood 20s-30s
Middle adulthood 40s-50s
Late Adulthood 60 years and on
I. PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT
The Fertilization Process
Human development is initiated when a male gamete (or sperm), penetrates the membrane of a female gamete (or ovum). Gametes are the mature sex cells, either sperms or eggs.
The male produces sperm in vast numbers (an avarage of 300 millions a day) in the testes.
Only around 300 to 500 reach to ovum. Ovum is larger than sperm. About once every 28 days, in the middle of a woman’s menstrual cycle, an ovum bursts from one of ovaries and drawn into fallopian tubes where fertilization takes place. At first, two sgametes maintain their seperate identities, side by side. Then, after an hour or more they combine and the living organism called zygote (fertilized egg) is formed. 38 weeks of pregnancy are divided into three phases.
Periods of Prenatal Development
The Germinal Period The Period of the Embryo The Period of the Fetus (the first two weeks) (2-8 weeks) (8 weeks to birth)
The Germinal Period: It is the period of prenatal development that takes place in the first two weeks after conception. The passage through the fallopian tubes takes three to four days and then the fertilized egg floats in the uterine cavity. The zygote is now one week old.
1st week: The zygote moves through the fallopian tubes to the uterus and called a blastocyst.
2nd week: The blastocyst becomes firmly implanted in the wall of the uterus and form placenta and umbilical cord.
The Period of the Embryo: It occurs from 2 to 8 weeks after conception. During this period all the major external and internal body structures begin to form.
Last half of the first month: The nervous system and the skin; muscles, skeleton, circulatory system, lungs, glands begin to develop.
The second month: Tiny buds become arms, legs finger and toes.
The Period of the Fetus: Dıring this longest prenatal period (from the eight week after conception and on) the organism increases rapidly in size.
During the third month, the sex organs appear and it is possible to determine the baby’s sex and the nervous system continous to increase in size and complexity. By the fourth month, the mother begin to feel movement. The fetus now swallows digests and discharges urine. By the end of the fifth month, the fetus sleeps and wakes like a newborn. After six months very few nerve and muscle cells appear, since at birth the nervous system must be fully functioning to ensure automatic breathing. By the final two months, sense organs develop.
Periods of Prenatal Development
Birth
Birth begins, triggered by biochemical signals from the placenta, about 266 days after conception. Child birth takes place in three stages, beginning with contractions that open the cervix so the mother can push the baby through the birth canal and ending with delivery of the placenta. During the process, infants produce high levels of stress hormones, which help them withsand oxygen deprivation, clear lungs for breathing and arouse them into alertness at birth.
Prematurity: The avarage duration of pregnancy is 280 days (37-42 weeks). Some babies are born earlier (before 37 weeks) are called “prematüre”, have high rates of mortality. Multiple birth, mother’s age, low socioeconomic status, smoking and alcohol are among causes of prematurity.
Cesarean Section: If for some reason the child cannot come through the birth canal, surgery is performed to deliver the baby through abdomen. This prodecures not reccomended unless necessary.
THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE DEVELOPMENT
Biological Environmental -Heredity (genes & chromosomes) -Prenatal -Hormones -At birth
-After birth
Hormones: Genes influence grwoth by controlling the body’s production hormones. The pituitary gland, located at the base of the brain, plays a critical role by releasing some hormones taht induce growth.
-Growth Hormone (GH): It is necessary for development of all body tissues except the central nervous system and genitals. Children who lack GH cannot reach an avarage mature height (treated with injections of GH).
-Thyriod-Stimulating Jormone (TSH): Stimulates the thyroid gland to release thyroxine, which is necessary for normal development of the nerve cells of the brain and for GH to have its full impact on body size.
-Sex hormones: Control sexual matuıration. Although estrogens are thought of as female hormones and androgens aare thought of as male hormones, both types are present in each sex but in different amounts. Testosterone released by testes and leads to muscle growth, body and facial hair, and male sex characteristics. Estrogens released by ovaries cause the breasts, uterus, vagina to mature, contribute to regulationbof the menstrual cycle, growth of underarm and pubic hair.
Environmental Influences
I. Influences on Prenatal Development
-Teratogens are environmental agents that cause damage during the prenatal period. Their impact may vary according to factors such as the amount and length of exposure, the presence or absence of other harmful agents, the age of organism at the time of exposure.
Some teratogenic agents and their possible effects:
Alcohol: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), cognitive deficits, growth retardation Cigarettes: Prematurity, lung problems
Asprine: Bleeding problems
Drugs: Neurological problems, unknown long-term effects
STD: Prematurity, CNS damages, growth failure, death from infection
-Maternal Influences: Among the significant influences on prenatal development are nutrition, maternal age, emotional stress.
Maternal nutrition: Children grow more rapidly during the prenatal period than any other phase of the development. During this period, they depend totally on the mother for nutrients.
Prenatal malnutrition can cause serious damage to the CNS. The poorer the mother’s diet, the greater the loss in brain wieght and the supressed development of immune system.
Emotional stress: When women experience severe emotional stress during pregnancy, their babies are at risk for a wide variety of difficulties such as prematurity, low birth wieght, respiratory and digestive problems.
Maternal age and previous births: Pregnancy under 18 and over 35 years old are riskful and may cause chromosomal defects, physical immaturity and birth complications.
-Rh Factor: Rh incompatibility (an Rh negative mother and Rh positive father) can lead to oxygen deprivation, brain and heart damage and infant death.
-The disorders of umbilical cord: The placenta is connected to the developing organism by umbilical cord, which first appear as a tiny stalk and contain one large vein that delivers blood loaded with nutrients and two arteries that remove waste products. Disorders of umbilical cord may cause growth failure, birth complications and death.
-Poor health and environmental risks associated with poverty, traumas and accidents may cause birth complications or death.
II. Influences at Birth:
Birth can sometimes be difficult an deven dangerous.
-Forceps delivery: It may present some dangers of rupturing blood vessels or causingsome brain damages.
-Breech birth: During the last month of pregnancy, most babies move into a headdown position. Some babies who does not turn during this time will be in breech birth position and may require a cesarean birth as it may beworrisome.
-Prematurity
-Anoxia: An interruption of the flow of oxygen to the fetus, it may cause brain damage or death.
-The complications of umbilical cord
III. Influences After Birth
Nutrition, traumas, accidents, diseases, family setting, friends, peers, mass communication instruments are among environmental factors that affect the development after birth..
II. INFANCY AND TODDLERHOOD (0-2 YEARS)
I. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
A baby is normally around 3-3.5 kg and 50 cm at birth. In the first days of life, most newborns lose between 5-10 percent of their body wieght, before their bodies adjust to sucking, swallowing and digesting their own. Once they made these adjustments, most infants
grow rapidly, doubling their weihgt by the four month and tripling by the end of the first year.
By age 1, a typical baby weighs 10 kg and 75 cm, by 2 years 13 kg and 80 cm.
As infants grow, their body proportions change. Most newborns seem top-heavy because their heads are equivalent to about one-fourth of their total length compared to one-eight in
adulthood. Boysa re advanced in wieght and height when compared with girls. The physical development is the fastest during the first 9 months before birth and the first year after the birth. Growth in the second year proceed at a slower rate.
Brain Growth: One reason the newborn’s skull is so disproportionally large is that it must accomodate the brain, which at birth has already attained 25 % of its adult weight. Early in developmment, the brain grows faster than any other organ of the body. Once the neurons are in place, they form synapses or connections, at a rapid rate. Glial cells, which are responsible for myelination mutiply into the second year. Lateralization refers to socialization of the hemisphere of the cerebral cortex.
Perceptual development
Vision: At birth, vision is the least developed of the senses. Newborns focus on objects between 10-75 cm. away. During the first half years eye and visual centers in the brian supports the development of focusing, discrimination of colors, the ability to follow moving objects. By second half of the first year, they perceive emotional expressions as meaningful wholes.
Hearing: At birth, infants not only can hear but also can perceive the direction of the sound.
They also become more sensitive to the sensitive to the sounds of their own language. Around 9 months, infants throw away objects to listen to their sounds. They know their names and turn their names and turn their head whenever names are called.
Taste and smell: Although less developed than their hearing, neonates’ sense of taste and smell is clearly functioning.
Motor Development
As a result of changes in body size proportion and the increasing brain maturation, infants drag, again dramatically in their ability to move and control their ability to move and control their bodies. Several important characteristics of motor control are:
Gross motor skills refer to control over actions that help infants get around in the environment, such as as crawling standing and walking.
Locomotion: It is mainly by arm action. The legs usually drag, although some youngsters push with their legs. Most youngsters can crawl after age 7. Creeping is more advanced than crawling, since hands and knees does not touch ground. By 8 months, infants can stand and take steps holding on to something, by 12 months they will pull self up. By 12 months they stand alone, begin to walk and by 18 months they begin to run.
Fine motor development: It has to do with smaller movements, such as reaching and
grasping. During their first 2 months, babies will stare and wave their arms at an object. By 6 months they can reach for , grab and hold onto almost any object.
Gross and Fine Motor Development in the First Two Years
Motor Skill Avarage Age Achieved
Can lift head and chest while prone Around 6 weeks Sits awkwardly with support Around 6 weeks
Grasps cube 3 months
Hold head steady while sitting 4-5 months Develops skillful use of thomb 4-5 months
Sits alone 7 months
Crawls 7 months
Has established head control 8 months
Can stand and take steps hold on to sth. 8 months
Stands alone 11 months
Walks alone 11 months 3 weeks
Builds tower of two cubes 11 months
Holds crayons, marks lines 12 months
Walks up stairs with help 16 months
Jumps in place 23 months
Walks on tiptoe 25 months
Reflexes: Infants’ first motor skills are not technically skills at all but reflexes, that is, involuntary responses to particular stimuli.
Neonatal Reflexes
Reflex Description
Babinski When their feet are stroked, their toes fan
upward
Rooting Gently touch cheek of infant with light finger
pressure, heads turn towards finger to suck
Moro When there is loud noise or sudden dropping
infant streches arm and legs, cries
Grasping When something toucjes their palms, their
hands grip tightly
Swimming When they are held horizantally on their
stomachs, their arms and legs strech out
Stepping When they are held upright with their feet
touching a flat surface they move their legs as if to walk
Tonic Neck When infants placed flat on back they turn
head and extend arm and leg in same direction as head.
II. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
According to Piaget’s sensorimotor substages from birth to 1 months, newborn reflexes serve as adaptive behaviors. Till up to 4 months the anticipation of events is limmited. Around 8-12 months, they engage in intentional, or goal-directed behavior such as pushing aside the obstacle and group the toy, and retrieve hidden objects (object permenance). Around 18-24 months they engage in deferred imitation and make-believe plays as they become capable of mental representation.
Deferred imitation: Infants who watched an unfamiliar adult’s facial expression imitated it when exposed to same adult the next day. Imıtation of familiar behaviors begin by 4 months.
Language Development: Three theories provide different accounts of how young children develop language. According to the behavioralist approach, parents train children in language skills through operant conditioning and imitation. In contrast, Chomsky’s nativist view reagrds children as naturally endowed with a language acquisition device. New interactionist theories suggest that innate abilities and a rich linguistic and social environment contribute and promote language development.
Language skills begin to develop as babies communicate with noises and gestures and then practice babbling. Infants say a few words by the end of the first years. By age 2, most toddlers can combine 2 words ro make a simple sentence.
Language Development
Newborn Cries, facial expressions
2 months Cooing
6-10 months Babbling
10 months Comprehension of simple words (deaf babies
show first signs)
12 months First spoken words
12-18 months Vocabulary up to 50 words
24 months Vocabulary more than 200 words
III. Emotional and Social Development
Emotion: Emotions are subjective reactions to the environment that are usually experienced cognitively as either pleasent or unpleasent, generally accompanied by physiological arousal and often expressed in some visible form of behavior.
Emotions are linked to children’s social success, intelligence, mental and phsyical health.
Children who become excessively sad and despondent may develop other problems such as poor concentration and withdrawal from social interaction. Children reared in environments in
which they are emotionally and socially deprived such as orphanages , may develop later problems with the management of stress and anxiety. These children have more difficulty in modulating their reactions to stress is revealed by hightened levels of cortisol that in turn may lead to problems. Sensitive, responsive parents help their infants grow emotionally, whether the infants respond in distressed or happy ways. Cries and smiles are two expressions that are the first forms of communication.
Crying: Most important mechanism to communicate with world, may also provide
information about the health of the newborn’s nervous system. Parents can diatinguish the cries of their own baby than others. There are 3 types of cry:
Basic cry: A rhytmic cry, followed by a briefer silence (e.g. hunger)
Anger cry: More air is forced through the vocal cords
Pain cry: A sudden long, initial loud cry followed by breath holding
Smiling: Smiles can be seen even in newborn babies. It is a critical means of developing a new social skill. The smiles encouarge caregivers to be affectionate and stimulating, so the babies smile even more.There are two types of smiles in infants:
Reflexive (simple) smile: A smile that does not occur in response to external stimuli. It happens during the month after birth.
Social smile: A smile in response to an external stimulus, typically a face in the case of the young infant.
There are three basic emotions: Happiness, anger and fear.
Happiness: It contributes to many aspects of development. Infants smile and laugh when they achieve new skills, expressing their delight in motor and cognitive mastery. The smiles encouarge caregivers to be affectionate and stimulating, so the babies smile even more.
During the first half year, basic emotions become clear, well-organized signals. By the end of the first months, infants start to smile at interesting sights. The social smile appears between 6 and 10 weeks, laughter around 3 to 4 months. Between the ages of 4-12 months, children were most likely to laugh at visual and social stimuli, such as a disappearing stimuli or such as the parents saying playfully “I am gonna get you” .Happiness strengthens the parent-child bond and reflects as well as supports physical and cognitive mastery.
Anger and fear: Newborn babies respond with their generalized stress to avriety of unpleasent experiences, including hunger, painful medical procedures, changes in body temperature or too much stimulation.
The most common form of fear is stranger anxiety that increase in the second half of the first year. Many infants are quite wary of strangers, although the reaction does not always ocur. When an unfamiliar adult picks up the infant in a new setting, stranger anxiety is likely. Infants also experience fear of bein seperated from their caregivers.
The result is seperation anxiety which refers to crying when the caregiver leaves.
Seperation anxiety (around 6-8 months) refers to becoming upset when the adult
whom they rely on leaves. It does not always occur; it depends on infant temperament and context. They use caregiver as a secure base from which to explore, exploring the environment and then return for emotional support. It indicates that a true attachment is formed .
Infants engage in social refencing, in which they actively seek emotional information from a trusted person in an uncertain situation.
Emotional self-regulation and coping: During the first year of life, infants also begin to manage their emotional experiences. Emotional self-regulation refer to the strategies we use to adjust our emotional state to a comfortable level of intensity so we can accopmlish our goals. For example, babies put their thumbs in their mouths to soothe themselves; or when they encounter a frightening event , they may turn away, place their hands over their faces, or distract themselves by some form of play. Methods of emotional control change as they grow older.
The caregivers’ actions influence the infant’s neurobiological regulation of emotions; help them modulate their emotions and reduce the level of stress hormones. Parents who read and respond sympathetically to the baby’s emotional cues have infants who are less fussy, more easliy soothed and more interested in exploration and learning. Many developmentalists argue that it is good stratgey to soothe the child before the child gets too intense and agitated.
Ainsworth argued that a response to infants cries is helpful for formation of a strong bond between the infant and the caregiver. In of Ainsworth’s studies, infants whose mothers responded quickly when they cried at 3 months of age cried less later in the first year of life.
Emotional regulation abilities are important predictors of later adjustments. For example, children who were better at regulating their anger showed less aggression and dispruptive behavior when they enetered school.
1. Provide as much stablity and consistent as possible : (e.g. consistent limit setting, clear rules and predictable routines.) This in turn helps them stay calmer and secure.
2. Accept your child’s emotions: It is normal for children to express their emotions by yelling, cursing or breaking something. Parents’ patience and acceptence are important for children to controll their emotions.
3. Talk about your won feelings: By using the lanugae of feelings parents not only transfer a usefull coping startgey but also sow them how they control their own emotions (e.g. “I felt really frustrated to see your team lose after doing so well throughout the whole game. But the important thing is that you have done your best and you really worked together. I am proud of you”)
4. Encourage children to talk about their own feelings. Avoid statements such as
“ don’t be sad “ or “ you shouldn’t be angry for this”, instead label the feeling and help the child the express the feelings “ I see that you are sad. Can you tell me what happened?” Sometimes it might be helpful to share a past experience that mathes the child’s.
5. Modelling and providing scaffolding for emotional regulation: Scaffolding is a form of reciprocal, bidirectional socialization that involves parental behavior that supports children’s efforts, showing them to be more skilfull, provide a positive and interactive framework (playing games such peek-a-boo or pat-a- cake involves turn taking sequences and scaffolding)
6. Teach children positive self talk about the event: Children whose self talk is negative get angry more easily than the ones whose self talk is positive.
Examples of positive self-talk: “ I can handle this”, “I can calm down”, “I have friends who are like me”, “Everyone can make mistakes. Nobody is perfect.
I’ll do better next time”
7. Teaching the “turtle technique” : It provides problem solving strategies and means of emotional regulation on a cognitive level. Is is an effective technique to calm down and take a step before engaging in problem solving. First the child is asked to imagine she has a shell , like a turtle. She is asked to go in, take three slow deep breaths and say to herself “stop, calm down!”. She is asked to focus on her breathing and relax muscles and she is coached to say “ I can calm down, I can do it , I can stay out fights”. When she feels calm enough she can come out and try again.
The Origins of Personality
Sense of self: It refers to the awareness of the self from other people and incorporates notions such as self-esteem, self-respect. Babies around 18 weeks happily gaze at their reflections at mirror. Children under 1 years old, belive that the reflection is another child and try to touch it or look the other side of the mirror. Between 12-24 months they learn to use terms such as “I”
and “me”.By around age 2, self awareness such as age , gender develop.
Temperament: Emotions and temperament are key aspects of personality. Personality refers to the enduring personal characteristics of the individual. Temperament is the stable
individual differences in quality and intensity of emotional reaction, activity level, attention and emotional self-regulation.
Three types of temperament:
1. Easy child: Generally cheerful, adopts easily, quickly establishes regular routines 2. Difficult child: Slow acceptance of new experiences, tends to react negatively and
intensely
3. Slow-to-warm-up child: Inactive, in negative mood, adjusts slowly
Attachment: It is the strong, affectional bond between the child and the parents. By the second half of the first year, infants have become attached to familiar people who have responded their needs. For example, when the mother enters the room, the baby friendly smiles. When she picks him up, he looks at her face, explores her hair and gets closer to her.
Infants develop attachment not only to mothers but also with their fathers, siblings, peers and others. Early secure attachment contributes to cognitive advancement and to the development of sociall skills. The more a child’s attachment is secure, the more she is to develop a positive self-concept.
Theories of attachment:
1. Psychoanalytic theory:
Freud first suggested that the infants emotional tie to the mother is the foundation of all later relationships. Freud argued that the child-rearing practices encountered in the oral and the anal psychosexual stages had a lasting impact on the person’s personality and mental health. According to Freud, babies become attached first to the mother’s breast and then to the mother herself as a source of oral gratification.
According to Erikson, the infant experiences the period of trust versus mistrust, discovering whether the immediate world is secure or insecure and than autonomy versus shame and doubt as the infant tries to achieve some measures of independence.
Margaret Mahler described a period of seperation-individuation. According to her theory, infants pass throgh a number of phases:
- Normal Autistic Phase: During the first week of life the infants spend most of their lives sleeping. The infant is detached and self-absorbed. Mahler later abondoned this phase.
- Normal Symbiotic Phase: This phase covers a period that infants show first signs of conscious awareness to 4-6 weeks. The infant is now aware of the mother, but has no individuality of its own. The mother and the infant are as one.
- Seperation-individuation: The infant begins to connect with its environment.
a. Differentiation (5 to 9 months): The infant becomes aware of the differentiation between self and the mother, using mother as a point of reference or orientation.
b. Practicing (9 to 16 months): The infant still experiences itself as one with mother but the infant can now get about on its own, first crawling and then walking freely.
c. Rapprochment (15 months and beyond): Begins to differentiate itself from the mother. The toddler may become tentative at this point wanting his mother to be in sight, to have eye contact and action, so that he can explore the world.
According to Winnicott, between the 4-12 months children would often become attached to a particular object that they invested with a subjective
significance. This object would be manipulated, sucked, or stroked, and often became an aid for falling asleep. When the caregiver leaves an infant, they can easily become upset by the disappearance of their primary caregiver. To compensate and comfort for this sense of loss, they use some object with the attributes of the mother. It is
something, usually a physical object, which takes the place of the mother-child bond and is called transition object. Common examples include dolls, teddy bears or blankets. Taking away the object from the child can cause great anxiety as they are now truly without their mother and suffer great feelings of loss and aloneness. When the young child begins to separate the "me" from the "not-me" and evolves from complete dependence to a stage of relative independence, it uses transitional objects.
Around 60% of children adopt such objects.
2. Learning theory: It has associatd the formation of mother-infant attachment with the mother’s reduction of the baby’s primary drive of hunger. Because the mother provides the infant with food, a primary reinforcer, she herself becomes a secondary reinforcer. This theory argues that attachment is not automatic. It develops over time as a ressult of satisfying interactions with adults and linked to feeding.
However, although feeding is an important context for building a close relationship,
attachment does not depend on hunger satisfaction. In his famous experiment, Harry Harlow seperated infant monkeys from their real mothers and raised them in the company of two surrogate mothers. One mother was made of stiff wire and had a feeding bottle attached to it.
The other was made of soft terry cloth but lacked a bottle. Especially in times of stress, the baby monkey preffered to cling to the cloth mother, even though she gave no food.
3. Cognitive developmental theory: This theory argues that, to form attachment, infants must be able to differentiate between her mother and stranger and be aware that people still exist even when she cannot see them (object permenance).
4. Ethological Theory: It is the most widely accepted theory of attachment. According to John Bowlby,both infants and the caregivers are biologically predisposed to form
attachments. He argued that the newborn is biologically equipped to form attachment. The baby cries, clings, coos and smiles, later crawls, walks and follows the mother. Lorenz’s study with animals helped shape this theory. According to Lorenz, by the process of imprinting, newborn birds develop an attachment to the first object they see after birth.
According to Bowlby, attachment develops generally in 2 years and in 4 phases:
1. The preattachment phase (0-6 weeks): Grasping, crying, smiling into adults eyes, recognizes mother’s smell and voice
2. The “attachment-in-the-making-phase “ (6 weeks-6/8 months): They respond differently to a cargiver than to a stranger. They begin to develop a sense of trust to the caregiver.
3. “Clear cut attachment” (6/8 months-18/24 months) : Attachment with the caregiver is clearly evident.
4. Formation of reciprocal relationship (18/24 months and on) : Seperation protest declines, children begin to understand parents coming and going, predict their return.
Mary Ainsworth designed a technique called “Strange Situation” to asses the quality of attachment between 1-2 years old. It takes the baby through some short episodes in wich brief episodes of seperationd reunions occur. Observing the responses of the infants, Ainsworth identified an attachment pattern as:
Attachment
